Once More
by IfIWereANerd
Summary: Post Season 2 Finale: In an attempt to find Henry in Neverland and save him from Peter Pan, Gold returns Emma and Neal to their pre-teen bodies to infiltrate the lost boys and learn more about their mission. Meanwhile, the rest of the Charming family pursues a manhunt for Greg and Tamara. If you feel four months is too darn long, check out this fic to entertain you in the meantime!
1. Unto the Breach

**We all know that four months is way too long to go without OUAT, so here is yet another fic to quench your thirst as you wait for the return, starting from the season finale's send off. Hope you enjoy.**

**This story will take a few chapters to get started. I need some space to bring everything from where it was left off in the finale to where I need it to be to continue with the plot I've spelled out in the description. Please stick around, it shouldn't be more than 3-4 chapters at most, and I promise to make them full of fluff and family tension that all serve to set up the more actively-paced plot nicely.**

**A few disclaimers. First of all, please disregard the scene in which Neal washes up on shore in the Enchanted Forest. For the purposes of this story, he was last seen being sucked through the portal in 'Second Star on the Right'. I didn't want to have to waste more space getting Neal over to Neverland before I began the story I wanted to tell.**

**Secondly, while the first scene written below is Captain Swan heavy, this is not a Captain Swan fic. It will pick up with the relationships where left off, and probably lean more towards Swanthief, but as always there will be some Captain Swan flirting and sexual tension, and the characters will weave their own versions of their relationships as the story unfolds.**

**Enjoy!**

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The blade of Emma's sword slashed into the wooden pillar of the ship's main mast, bouncing back brusquely as it elicited a loud clang and left a deep, dark gash. She swung again. And again. Her lessons were pulsing through her mind. Stand side face, shoulders back, feet braced wide, knees bent, wrists loose…

Every few moments, other thoughts would threaten to penetrate her mind. Sour memories of the past few days. The feeling of Neal's hand slipping out of hers as she tightened her grasped on the plank of wood she held, digging splinters into her palm, and he fell and was swallowed by nothingness. Regina with her hands around that growing diamond, sucking electric blue power from its evil source. The feeling of that leather pouch when she dug her finger into it and found it was empty. That sad, abandoned backpack, broken at the strap, draped across the iron bars and wooden planks of the out-of-use mine railroad. Henry's terrified face as he had looked up frantically at his mother, sprinting as fast as she could towards him down the docks, just before he was tugged viciously forward into the portal and ripped away from her.

_Stand side face_, she repeated in her mind, forcing her new training to attack these memories until they retreated into some part of her mind she could not access. _Knees bent, wrists loose, shoulders back, feet braced wide…_

That's why she was doing this, after all. Why she had nearly refused to put a sword down since boarding the ship. Why it was the middle of the night and everyone else was below deck, but she was here, practicing her strokes one swing of the blade at a time. To help give her mind something to focus on, so it would not focus on those wide terrified eyes, cast in that unnatural green glow, those small hands bound as he struggled against the pair who had captured him…

_Knees bent_, she all but whispered out loud. _Eyes forward, stand side face. Wrists loose, feet braced wide, shoulders back, and_...

Her blade met metal with an unwarranted cry. She blinked, searching for what she had hit. She hadn't been looking really, hadn't even been paying attention. As she squinted in front of her, she saw her sword caught at the end by something curved shining in the starlight, before she felt it wrenched in a circle and thrust backwards. She caught herself before she stumbled with it as Hook stepped further into the light. Emma breathed a sigh of relief and frustration.

"You scared me," she said.

"Well, you're scaring me, lass," Hook said, folding his arms and cocking an eyebrow as he leaned lazily against the scarred wood of the mast. "You haven't stopped swinging that sword for hours. What did my ship's mast ever do to you?"

"I thought you went to bed," Emma panted, turning to look at her sword. Now that she took the time to notice, her hand was sore and blistered, and the blade was worn and dented. As she released the grip on the hilt and stood the sword against a box at her side, she felt like she was peeling off her own skin, as if the weapon had fused itself to her hand from overuse.

"You know a ship is made of wood, right?" Hook said. "And that wood absorbs sound? There's no way any of us can get any sleep with you hammering away up here. The others are just too noble to say anything about it." Hook smiled slyly. "But don't worry, you never have to worry about nobility with me."

Emma turned away from him in a huff with a strong urge to kick something. When she found nothing suitable, she strode angrily over to the edge of the ship.

"There's no room on this damned boat!" she lamented.

"Ship," Hook corrected quietly. Emma continued as if she had not heard his quip.

"Nowhere to hide," she continued, reaching the railing of the ship, leaning on both of her hands and speaking to the wide, vast ocean in front of her. "No place where someone can get a minute to breathe and just… be alone."

From the moment they had fallen through the portal, Emma had insisted on sword training with her father. When she had worn him out, she had demanded her mother take over. She had allowed them to break only because it had given her time to hustle lessons in performing magic out of Gold and Regina. When they grew tired as well, she would call upon her parents again to pick up their swords.

"You need to rest," Charming had insisted. "Save your strength."

"If you don't use it, you lose it," Emma had retorted.

"Emma," Snow started, but the blonde cut her off.

"Don't Emma me!" she had barked. "Remember what happened the last time you Emmaed me?"

"It's amusing to see both of their stubbornness fused into one person and then thrown right back in their faces," Regina had chuckled as a sidebar to Gold, loud enough for the entire dock to hear. The trio had shot her a resentful look, and she had blinked, nearly choking down a laugh at the same piercing expressions reflected at her three times over.

As dusk grew, Emma had taken up inanimate objects as her opponents, practicing her stance and her strokes and relishing anything that took her mind off of her problems. Slowly the rest of the party had filtered below decks to sleep, and she had remained, hashing and slashing away. She actually had enjoyed the solitude for a time. There had not been much of it in the past few months, what with the four of them in that tiny loft and the town being so small and all the problems that had arisen since the breaking of the curse. If she really let herself feel it, she missed being alone.

But there was no solitude to be found on a ship, as Hook's remark had just reminded her. Her entire family, and then some, were downstairs listening to what she was doing. Not that they had much of a choice. She leaned out over the edge of the boat, catching the brisk sea breeze in her face, taking a deep, calming breath. She felt Hook's footsteps as he moved to join her.

"No, not much privacy on a ship," Hook agreed, leaning his back against the railing and facing the opposite way, folding his arms across his chest. Emma snorted a laugh. Hook raised his eyebrows. "Something funny?" he prodded.

"Irony, is all," she responded, surveying the rolling landscape of the waves that extended farther than she could see as they reflected the pointed lights of the stars above them, making them dance. "I spent my entire childhood alone, wishing I had a family, and now that I'm stuck on a boat with them, all I can think about is finding some place to be by myself."

"Yeah, well, spend enough time on a ship and you'll learn that it's just as easy to feel lonely when you're surrounded by people as it is when there's no one around," Hook recounted, turning to mimic her stance and looking out into the ocean as well. Emma did a double take at the bitterness she heard in his voice. She saw it mirrored in his eyes as he stared out at the blue nothingness before them, a slight breeze bristling his hair. She opened her mouth as if to respond, then found that she didn't quite know what to say, so she shut it again and turned to mimic his gaze. The pair stood in a comfortable silence for a few moments.

"Are we at least somewhere _close_ to Neverland?" she eventually asked, scanning the dark horizon for any sign of land.

"Trust me, love, finding Neverland isn't going to be the problem," Hook assured her cryptically. "The problem will be landing there without detection."

"Detection?" Emma repeated, looking sharply at him. "By whom?"

The pair shared a look of great gravity that suspended long in the cool breeze of the oceanic evening. Hook seemed about to answer, but then to struggle. Her eyes were already so sad. He didn't want to give her any more news to grieve over. Before he could make up his mind the best way to respond, however, a third voice joined them.

"Everything alright here?"

Emma and Hook turned simultaneously to find who had spoken. They had not heard Charming's footsteps coming up the stairs or through the door that led below deck. He stood by the mast, a few paces away. Emma could tell by the way the vein in his neck pulsed as he eyed Hook that it wasn't just the moonlight that had his face so pale. Hook blinked, then looked down at the wooden planks beneath his feet, smiling a crafty grin. He glanced up at Emma.

"That conversation's best left for the morning, love," he said quietly. "Best get some sleep. We've got a long hunt ahead of us." He strode past Charming, whose narrowed eyes followed him. "Impeccable timing, as always, Charming," he goaded as he passed. Charming's eyes narrowed still further, but he let the quip slide. When he reached the doorway that led below deck, Hook looked back with a sly smile on his face and added, "if you get lonely in the night, Swan, you know which cabin is mine."

Charming took an angry and protective step forward, but Hook had already slipped through the doorway and Emma called his attention away from the pirate.

"Don't rise to it," she warned, "he's just trying to get under your skin."

"He's becoming increasingly apt at that," Charming assured her through gritted teeth.

"If we are going to get Henry back, you two are going to need to accept the fact that you are on the same team and learn to work together," Emma chided, feeling a bit like the roles of this twisted relationship were reversed; that she were the parent and Charming the child.

"I don't like the way he looks at you," he seethed, casting a dark glance at the door through which the pirate had disappeared. When he looked back at his daughter, he saw that she as well had a curious smile on her face. A thought dawned on him. "Do you like him?"

Emma shook her head, her smile growing. "No. He baits me and I bite back, but no. We just… understand each other is all. I think he likes that I can keep up with him, and I can't say I don't find it amusing myself. But what I do like is you getting all protective and defending my honor."

"Anywhere, anytime, Princess," he offered with a grin, striding up next to her and draping an arm around her protectively, pressing a light kiss into her golden hair. She allowed her head to droop onto his shoulder and for a moment father and daughter stood comfortably looking out across the dark, rolling water.

"You should cut him some slack," she said, her voice drooping with exhaustion. "He's family too, you know."

"How so?" he asked, vaguely curious.

"He's Neal's stepfather."

Charming pulled back and looked down at Emma, who tilted her head up to meet his eyes and confirm what she had said with a glance. His eyebrows were raised in disbelief, demanding that she explain further.

"He and Neal's mother fell in love and ran away together. That's why Gold wants to kill him. And Hook wants to kill Gold because after he became the dark one, Gold killed his ex-wife for leaving him and Neal, and Hook swore revenge on his murdered love."

Charming blinked at her, taking in everything she said and rolling it over in his mind until all the pieces made sense. He let out a long breath as he looked back out at the water.

"What are we, on some kind of TV show?" he breathed, pulling Emma back into his embrace as their resumed their familial stance. "That's soap opera level drama, that is."

"You forget that on some level this entire thing is a whole big Disney movie to me," Emma laughed. "Snow White and Prince Charming. Giants and magic beans. Pirate ships and Neverland."

Charming smiled. He was constantly in awe of everything about his daughter. Her strength, her resilience, her goodness despite all the bad she had experienced. He himself had been attempting to keep his own slew of terrible recent memories at bay from the past few days. The wound where Tamara's gunshot had grazed his bicep still irritated him as it rubbed against his shirt sleeve. The way Emma had looked at him after she had found the pouch empty in that mineshaft and the way she had muttered 'Dad' in a terrified whisper and trembled as he held her for what he thought would be the last time. How she had struggled against him when he had grabbed hold of her desperately to keep her from vaulting through the portal after his grandson, who was already far beyond their reach. He gave her thin form a soft squeeze, as if to remind himself that she was still there beside him.

"Hook was right about one thing though," he said softly, "much as I hate to admit it. You really should get some rest."

"I can't sleep," Emma told him. "Every time I close my eyes, I see his face. His white face and his terrified eyes as they pull him through that swirling portal."

"We will find him, you know," Charming assured her. "You, your mother and I, we are very well-practiced in finding each other."

"I never would have pictured this is how this would happen," Emma continued. "Not in a million years. Even after the curse broke and I found out the truth and even when I first start suspecting Tamara, I never would have guessed that this is how this would play out. An entire world away, with very little chance of ever getting back, on a wild goose chase through Neverland. It's – it's not fair."

She felt childish saying it, but it was how she felt. On some level, standing there in her father's arms, she felt like a little girl, young and naïve and about to embark upon a journey of which she had very little knowledge or certainty. She took a deep breath and blinked in the stars dancing in the water around her. She looked up into her father's face.

"Once more unto the breach?" she asked, quoting Shakespeare. Charming blinked down at her, then smiled and paternally tugged her still closer, resting his cheek atop her head.

"I couldn't have said it better myself."

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**Some Captain Swan and Daddy Charming feels to start us off! Lots more feels to come with all members of the family, and a faster paced plot within the next few chapters, I promise, just setting everything up.**

**Also, just so you know, I also intend on writing another fic centering around Storybrooke. I love the dynamic of the town and am sad the main characters have left it behind for what seems like the foreseeable future. I'm not sure what form this fic will take yet, it will probably an alternate version of how season two could have gone from the beginning, but it is hard to picture the story without Neal and Hook, so I'm not quite sure yet. Still working on it, but be on the look out for it.**

**Please read and review! I am really motivated by feedback. Let me know what you think.**


	2. On the Horizon

Before the sun was fully visible in the sky the next morning, still partially hidden under the horizon as it met the rolling sea, Snow was hurling over the edge of the ship. Again. Emma heard shadows of the sound as she took the stairs from below deck and emerged into the bright dawn, shielding her eyes from the glare. She rounded the corner of the cabin to see her mother leaning over the railing, her father right beside her, rubbing her back comfortingly. She stepped back cautiously into the shadow of the wall beside her, wanting to familiarize herself with the scene on which she was intruding before she made her presence known.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Charming cooed, a concerned crease in his brow.

"I'm fine," Snow assured him, pressing her hand to her lips and swallowing hard. "I just… the sea doesn't agree with me, I suppose."

"It seemed like you were feeling better after yesterday morning," Charming pointed out hopefully. "I thought maybe the seasickness was over, that you'd adjusted, considering you made it through the night just fine."

"I guess not," was all Snow had to contribute.

"Is there anything I can do?" he begged. Snow looked up with him, choking back her nausea in a short glance of affection.

"No, dear, really, I'll be fine," she insisted. "Why don't you go gather everyone. We've a lot to discuss today. I'll be right be ri-" she paused with a small hiccup as if she were keeping something down, "right behind you," she finished shakily.

Charming gave his wife a sympathetic look and a soft, romantic kiss on the forehead before obeying and scurrying off around the corner of the center cabin. Emma paused for a moment as her mother leaned over the side again and began to wretch.

"Still haven't told him?" she asked suddenly, making her presence known as Snow recovered from her most recent fit of nausea. She started and whipped around.

"Told who what?" she asked, her eyes darting about the ship, evasively avoiding her daughter's as Emma drew closer.

"Come on, Mary Margaret," Emma insisted. "Maybe you can hide it from him, but not from me. I've been through it before too, remember? We both know that seasickness doesn't just pop up at the beginning of the day and disappear for the rest of it. But morning sickness, on the other hand…"

"Sh!" Snow's voice sounded panicked as she took both of Emma's hands in hers and turned desperately to face her, her nausea doubling. "How long have you known?"

"Since about hour two on this boat," Emma confided, and she saw Snow sigh in disappointment that her secret was no longer that. "Like I said, I've been through it before too. The question is," Emma continued, "how long have you known? Did you know before we left Storybrooke?"

Snow looked down on her feet, then back up at her daughter guiltily.

"I thought I had the flu," she admitted. "It was only the last morning we were in town that I began to make the connection, remember the pattern, and then Regina went missing and Neal… well…"

She dissolved into a sad silence as she watched her daughter's face fall with the memories.

"…and I sort of lost track of things until the next morning," Snow continued. "I was glad to have seasickness as an excuse while I try and figure out a way to tell your father."

"Well, I'm no expert," Emma admitted, "but I'm pretty sure continuing to lie to him is not the first step. He has the right to know."

"It's not that simple," Snow insisted, taking a step back and letting Emma's hands drop from hers as she began to pace anxiously. "Look where we are, looking what we are about to do! We've all got enough to worry about. This is not the time…"

"But it is the time," Emma pressed. "It has to the be the time, because it's happening. There's no delaying it, no putting it on hold. Believe me, I remember feeling the same way when I found out about Henry. Thinking that putting off thinking about it would put it on hold, but it won't, it can't. You're pregnant, Mary Margaret, and like it or not, in about nine months, you are going to have a baby. I'm going to have a brother or sister, and David is going to have another child. And he has a right to know. I've learned that much, at least, since finding out the truth about Henry's father."

Snow stopped pacing and looked Emma dead in the eye, both concerned and grateful that her own daughter would feel such strength and certainty when all she was feeling at the moment was doubt and a gut wrenching fear.

"I'm scared," she whispered, warm tears threatening to brim in her eyes as her voice wavered. "I don't know if I can do this."

Emma stepped forward and enveloped her mother and friend in a meaningful embrace, squeezing her supportively.

"I don't think you have a choice," she whispered. Snow nearly laughed. Of course she was right. This baby was coming, whether she liked it or not, and if she did let herself feel it, through the fear and the anxiety, she did like it. The idea of it. She was so grateful to have Emma back in her life and finally have the chance to be with her, however rocky the past year had been, but she also constantly regretted the years she had missed. The troublesome toddler years and the angsty adolescent ones. If she were being honest with herself, she was ecstatic about the prospect of having another child to love and getting the chance to watch him or her grow up.

"Please don't tell your father," Snow begged her as the embrace continued. "Please, I'll find a way, I promise, I will tell him, I just… I need more time. To figure out how."

Emma pulled back and Snow caught her eyes desperately. Emma looked skeptical for a moment, then smiled.

"I can't exactly judge," she admitted. "I did wait eleven years before telling the father of my own child. Your secret is safe with me. But just remember – the longer you wait, the harder it will be to give him the news."

Snow nodded to show she understood her meaning.

"Well, as long as that's understood," Emma said, eyeing her mother sternly, "then I believe congratulations are in order!" Her face spread into a wide and genuine smile as she pulled her mother back into an embrace, this one short and celebratory. Snow squeezed her daughter back.

"Are you really ok with it?" she said, pulling back and looking into her daughter's face for any sign of dishonesty or fallaciousness.

"Ok with it?" Emma said. "I grew up without any family and now, within the course of just one year, I get a mother, a father, _and _a new brother or sister to spoil? I couldn't be happier. Sure, there are some logistics to work out. The fact that Henry will be twelve years older than his own aunt or uncle, for one, not to mention the fact that we currently live on a ship in the middle of what I have discerned to be very dangerous territory and have no way of getting back to any kind of stable home…"

Emma could tell her humor was only half-appreciated by the anxious brunette before her, so she put it aside in a rare fit of raw, vulnerable genuineness, grasping her mother's hands and squeezing them reassuringly.

"I'm more than fine with it," she assured her. "I'm thrilled."

"Really?" Snow asked skeptically.

"Ecstatic," Emma confirmed with a confident smile.

"Thank you, Emma," Snow said, pulling her daughter into their third embrace of the morning. The situation seemed to warrant it. "You have no idea how much that means to me."

Emma couldn't help but smile into her mother's shoulder. Sure, there was a little piece of her that was jealous that this child would get to grow up with her parents while she was robbed of that opportunity. At the same time, every time any sign of regret or resentment regarding her childhood reared in her mind, she remembered that if she had not grown up the way she had, she would not have met Neal, and would not have had Henry. And when she remembered that, she felt at peace with all the horrors she had experienced growing up, because she would not give her son up for anything.

"What's that?" Snow said curiously from over her shoulder, and Emma felt her tense as she released her, looking past her shoulder to something on the horizon. Emma mimicked her stare, casting her glance out into the ocean. At first, she saw nothing, but as she scanned again she noticed something, small and distant, marring the otherwise endless and redundant ocean tide that surrounded them. She squinted.

"Is it driftwood?" Snow speculated, stepping right up to the railing and leaning over it. Emma joined her, narrowing her eyes still further against the glare of the morning sun reflecting off the water.

"It looks like a person, doesn't it?" she asked. She could see what she thought looked like a small arm wrapped tightly around something, bobbing in the water. And a pale face, but it was too far away to tell. As it floated closer however, she began to recognize the features, though the reality caught in her throat so she couldn't say anything, couldn't allow herself to dare to hope.

"Emma, is that…?" Snow began, leaning for out to confirm her suspicions. Emma shook her head in a shocked disbelief.

"No," she whispered, hoping beyond hope that she was wrong. "No, it can't be."

Snow snapped her wide eyes to her daughter as she finished her question.

"…Neal?"

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**Some Snow/Emma feels to round out the Charming Family fluffiness. I like pregnant Snow fics, i think it's a fun dynamic to explore, and so I thought it would be a good side plot to this little shenanigan. And, of course, welcome back Neal! Next chapter we get into the meat of the truth about Neverland as the plan for how to proceed forms itself, now that the whole family is back together.**


	3. A Boy to Trade

**I'm so sorry for the delay. There was way too much to put into this chapter - reunion, family drama, explaining Neverland, explaining Hook and Neal's history. I tried it a bunch of different ways and eventually decided I couldn't put everything I wanted into there, so there is some reunion and family drama in here, but in the next few chapters there will be some more, specifically regarding Neal and Gold. But on the bright side, while I was trying to get this part right, I also jotted down a lot of good future scenes so that hopefully the posting pace will pick up.**

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When Neal first recognized his surroundings after he had fallen through the portal, still sporting the pain and harried breath of the bullet that had ripped through his side, his only thought was to get off the island as quickly as possible. He knew where he was, he had been here before, and he knew what awaited him if the keepers of the island found him on their turf. He was sure the lost boys would recognize him, even though he was an adult now, and he knew what they did to people who betrayed them. He had watched it done several times, hadn't had any other choice. And Neal had definitely betrayed them.

Luckily, he had landed near the shoreline. He half-stumbled, half-dragged himself to the water's edge, where he found a rotting log conveniently washed up a few yards from the waves' breaking point. It took all the strength he had to push it into the water, the arm on his injured side proving useless and limp, and flop himself on top of it as it began to float out to sea, all the while sure that from the depths of the jungle he could hear threatening footsteps and, every once in a while a voice he vaguely recognized, before he mercifully lost consciousness completely.

He didn't know how long he drifted like that. As his body floated in and out of the waves, his mind floated in and out of consciousness. At one point he was vaguely aware of a long, slender shadow flickering in the depths below him. _Mermaids_ he thought, but he was too delirious to muster much fear, let alone the motivation to do anything about it. Perhaps they thought he was already dead, or just a log drifting along with no person clinging to it. For whatever reason, they left him well enough alone, and he was grateful.

By the time the party on the Jolly Roger found him, it was nearly too late. The sea had swallowed much of his blood before the open wound had managed to clot itself, and had lowered his body temperature to a dangerous level. His pale face had turned blue, and at first, as Charming and Hook hoisted him on board, Emma feared the worst. As they lay him on the deck and backed away, allowing for Emma and Gold, an unlike pair bonded by the only person in the world who could bond them, to step forward and crouch beside him, Neal did not move, nor did he open his eyes. Emma grasped his hand as Gold leaned forward, and waited for his assessment.

"He's alive," Gold determined, his voice nearly cracking as Emma breathed a sigh of relief that somehow only served to further entice tears into her eyes. She choked back a sob. "I'll need to work fast."

Gold placed his hands over his son and closed his eyes, muttering some kind of incantation. Emma watched the color return to Neal's face. Gold's hands glided over to the bullet wound, and through the whole it had torn in his shirt Emma saw it heal over until it was completely gone. After a few more moments of concentration, Gold sat back on his heels, panting. Still Neal did not move.

"I though you said he was alive," Emma said frantically, looking from father to son. "If you healed him, why isn't he…?"

"Wait for it," Gold breathed, a hint of fear in his own voice as he struggled to trust his own power. The two stared down at the still man between them. Moments turned to years as nothing changed. The entire crew held it's breath.

Then, suddenly, Neal began to choke water from his lungs painfully. While Gold helped him to sit straighter, Emma pressed her eyes tightly closed, two shaky tears escaping her lashes and dripping down her cheeks. She found she had to remind herself to breathe.

"It's alright, son, it's alright," Gold was saying, his voice softer and more tender than any of the people watching had ever heard it. "You're alive. You're going to be alright." He seemed as if he were trying to reassure himself as much as his son before him. Neal continued to cough up water and gulp air back into his lungs.

"Papa?" he asked blearily, blinking the wet from his eyelashes, utterly confused as his father's face swam before him. Gold put a supportive hand under his arm and dragged him to a standing position. "What's… where are… how did you find…?"

His sense of touch seemed more sensitive right now than any of the others. He could feel the pain in his side, which had become a part of him for the last couple days, was noticeably absent. He could feel his mind light and dizzy in its skull. He could feel the cool water dripping down him and on to the hollow wooden surface below him. But he still found his vision swimming so that he could barely see what was in front of him. But his eyes did find something that they latched onto, and it helped him to focus. Golden hair swimming before him. Such a familiar shade. He followed it to her face, and then her eyes. Those eyes could level him anywhere.

"Emma?" he breathed, a relieved smile spreading over his face, his focus finally returning to his sight.

"Are you alright?" Emma asked in a whisper, her eyes hard to read as they scoured his face. He nodded slowly and moved towards her. He wanted her in his arms, wanted to inhale her scent and feel her heart beating close to his. Instead, he got a quick, smart smack in the face.

"You son of a bitch," she spat fiercely as the rest of the dock froze.

"Um, ow," Neal said, rubbing his jaw line.

"You tell me you love me and then you just let go?" Emma bore down on him, her voice furious and terrified. He knew that tone in her voice, and knew that she only reached it when she truly cared about something or someone. He would have smiled if his cheek weren't so sore. "I have half a mind to throw you back in the water."

"I wouldn't try it," Gold growled, stepping protectively in front of his son.

"Keep out of it, Gold," Emma snarled, pointing an accusatory finger in his face. "I didn't see any of this parental concern when he was being sucked through that portal with a bullet in his chest."

Gold's face whitened with fury, but he held his tongue as Emma turned away from him and made to storm down the deck. Neal sidestepped his father. He would deal with him later. Right now he only had thoughts for what he was now sure was the love of his life.

"I was trying to protect you," he offered weakly.

"Just like the first time you left?" Emma said fiercely, rounding on him and challenging him with her eyes. "Remember how well that turned out?"

"I was going to fall through that portal whether I liked it or not," Neal reasoned, his voice finding its strength. He was not going to go down without a fight. He may have hurt her, but he stood by his decision to let go of her hand. It was the only one he could have made at the time. "The only choice I had in the matter was whether or not I dragged you with me. I didn't want to do that to Henry, to have him lose both his parents when he only needed to lose one."

"Well, that's just great, because now both his parents have lost him!"

"What do you mean?" Neal said, blinking. "Why are you all even over here, and how did you get…" He began to look around at all of them and noticed the lack of any young boy on board. Emma would never have left Henry unless..."You aren't in Neverland looking for me, are you?"

"We thought you were dead," Emma said, before she remembered that she was furious with the man in front of her and didn't owe him an excuse. Despite her anger, she wanted him to know that had she thought he might have lived, of course she would have been looking for him too. If things hadn't gotten so messed up. "You were shot in the chest, you fell through a portal to God knows where…"

"Where's Henry?" Neal asked directly. He knew that when she started rambling, it meant she was avoiding something.

"Bae, you've had a long couple of…" Gold started gently from behind his son.

"Where is he?" Neal insisted of Emma, his voice rising.

"They abducted him."

Neal felt the pit of his stomach drop inside of him, as if it were no longer there. As if it were long gone in the depths of the ocean. It was strange how quickly he had become attached to the boy. He'd always pictured himself as a loner, never staying in one place for too long, never getting close to anyone, but somehow this kid had wormed his way into his heart in a few short weeks. Just like his mother.

Emma saw the devastation waft over his expression like a wave, and she felt the sudden urge to run to him. To grieve with him and have him console her and promise each other things. Like that they would get him back and that they would not stop until they did. He was the only other one who was experiencing the same grief as she, and as she looked into his eyes as she delivered the news, she understood that he did in fact love his son as much as she did.

Neal saw a similar despair in Emma's face, and he desperately wanted to hold her in his arms. To cradle her and tell her everything would be alright and have her scent engulf him and take him away from the situation at hand. For a moment, the two stood suspended in the wake of the unspoken emotions between them, but the moment passed and Emma's untrusting instincts kicked in as she looked away, unwilling to let herself seek solace in the man who had abandoned her twice now.

Neal sensed this rejection and cleared his throat, trying to put two words together and clarify things. He was afraid to ask the next question that came from his mouth.

"Who's they?" he croaked, his voice dry.

Emma didn't want to answer. She felt the response catch in her throat. She wasn't quite sure why. Though she had been unable to admit it, she had been jealous of Neal and Tamara while they were together. She should be happy that the woman turned out to be a backstabbing kidnapper. But she had also played Neal, and as much as it terrified Emma, she did love Neal. And she knew how devastating it felt to be played.

Emma hesitation confirmed Neal's suspicions for him, but another of the crew answered nonetheless.

"Greg and Tamara," Regina said darkly. She was not entirely following what was going on between Emma and Neal and any other party that played a role in that weird and twisted history, and perhaps she should have been considering how heavily her own son factored into that equation, but she had suffered too much pain and fear at the hands of Greg and Tamara to give a damn about revealing their identities.

Neal brought a hand up to his mouth, his face creased in rage and disbelief. He turned away from the group and took a few steps towards the edge of the ship, as if he was looking for some place to be alone to take in the news before he realized that he was on a very small boat with no escape. Just like Emma had realized the night before. She really felt for him. How could she not? Despite her anger and fear, she did truly love him, and she knew what it was like to be lied to by someone you thought loved you.

"We tracked them here, to Neverland," she offered as small solace. "Used the last bean to follow."

Neal was silent for a moment more as if he was hearing things on a delay, but then he turned to look sharply at, of all people, Hook.

"Are they bringing him to _him_?" he asked. Everyone on board showed a certain surprise at Neal addressing Hook in such a familiar and cryptic manner, not the least of whom was Gold, whose narrowed eyes darted between his son and his enemy in confusion.

"I can only imagine so," Hook answered simply.

"You think Henry's the one he's been looking for?"

"I think Greg and Tamara must believe he is. We were just getting into all that when you washed onto the horizon. Perhaps you would like to chime in any embellishments you think appropriate as I begin?"

"No," Neal said, his voice suddenly strong and sure. "I don't want you anywhere near this. You sold me out to them. You'd just as soon sell him too."

"If I was worried about protecting myself I wouldn't have come here in the first place," Hook reasoned stubbornly. He knew when he decided to come on this voyage that he would have some trust to rebuilding and some proving of himself to do. But he was going to do it, going to do the right thing until no doubted anymore.

"Why would you give a damn?" Neal argued bitterly.

"You know why," Hook told him with a cryptic cock of his eyebrow. Neal cast an almost unnoticeable glance in the direction of his father, then down at the floor before he pierced Hook again with his skeptical glare.

"Didn't stop you from giving me up to him all those years ago."

"It almost did," Hook said. "It would have if you hadn't been so bent on running away from me, but given the circumstances, I did what I had to do. By the looks of it, you managed yourself just fine, didn't you?"

"This is different," Neal said, his voice almost panicked. "He's been looking for this boy for hundreds of years. If Henry's the one he's been looking for, then he's as good as dead."

"What?" Emma and Regina chorused together. Emma had been vaguely following the fast-paced interaction between Neal and Hook, steadily becoming more and more confused by the increasingly cryptic nature of what was being said. However, when the word 'dead' began to be thrown around, that was when the waiting to be clued in on what was going on had to stop. Emma felt herself grow a bit weaker, and for a moment feared she might not be able to keep her balance as the horror of the idea crept over her. Henry, her Henry, good as dead?

Snow seemed to instinctively know that Emma was close to collapsing, because she took a subtle step up behind her and gently grabbed her arm in support.

"I hadn't really gotten to that part yet," Hook growled, his eyes darting to a panicked Emma as he sidestepped Neal and made to walk up the dock, "but nice job softening the blow."

"Will you two please slow down and explain to the rest of us what the hell you are talking about?" Regina demanded.

"Not what," Hook said, turning to face them all. "Who."

"Who, then?" Emma prodded. She was done with these cryptic games. The word 'death' had been thrown about in the same sentence as her son, by his own father, no less. This was no time for secrets. This was the time to lay everything on the line.

"Pan," Neal answered in a vicious whisper.

"Pan?" Snow said, scowling. "As in Peter Pan?

"You've heard of him?" Hook asked the crew from the Storybrooke, perplexed. As far as he knew, they had only ever lived in the Enchanted Forest before the curse.

"We've all seen the film, I'm assuming," Regina said, looking around at them all as each nodded. "Peter Pan came and took Wendy and her brothers to Neverland…"

"You don't know crap about Wendy Darling," Neal said sharply. The heat of the response caused everyone to look at him, surprised. "Or her brothers."

"You knew Wendy?" Emma asked him, a bit in awe.

"You could say hers was my first foster family," Neal told her, and Emma gave him a small sympathetic smile. "I came here to save her and John and Michael from being taken by the shadow."

"The shadow?" Regina asked darkly.

"Neverland is nothing like the movie you saw," Neal explained. "Peter Pan isn't some happy-go-lucky hero. He's a villain."

"Peter Pan's not the villain," Snow protested in uncertain confusion.

"Just like Red isn't also the wolf?" Neal challenged her, and Snow took the point silently. "None of the stories are the way they seem. Because they're real. This is real, and it's not pretty. If they are taking Henry to Pan, then our only hope is to stop them before they reach him, because if Pan gets involved…"

Neal didn't finish his sentence, as if the ending was too gruesome, but the terrifying mystery of letting it hang open-ended did nothing to calm Emma's nerves.

"We have to get to the island," she said desperately. "We have to stop them."

"I can't just land on shore," Hook explained in an exasperated tone. "The only time they allowed me on shore was when I had something to trade."

"So let's trade, then," Snow suggested, failing to see the problem. "We have to have something they want. What did you trade with them?"

Hook did not answer, and Emma could not help but notice the dark and challenging look Neal shot him over his shoulder. Snow raised her eyebrows at Hook, awaiting a response as well as the rest of the crew, but Hook remained silent, avoiding their eyes until Neal finally answered for him.

"Boys," he said simply. Everyone's head turned towards him. "He traded them boys he found. Like me."

"What?!" Snow asked in sharp disbelief, but Gold was already on his feet, and within moment he had grabbed hold of Hook's lapel threateningly.

"You back-stabbing, cut throat coward!" Gold growled, ferocity etched in every line of his face.

"You're calling me a coward, crocodile?" Hook challenged, meeting his passion in full forced, his face inches from Gold's. "Have we forgotten why he landed alone so far from home in the first place?"

"Can we leave the past in the past?" Neal asked in an aggressive voice, pushing his father and the pirate apart as if he were pushing through two western-style saloon doors. He turned and dropped down on spare crate, bringing his fingers up to his temples in frustration. Emma truly felt for him. Even before she knew the truth about his past, she had known it was not a good one. She and he and shared that in common, and sort of had an unspoken agreement not to speak about what was past. Both had wanted to forget, and it had bonded them, that desire to leave the past where it was and move forward. After all, when two people meet in a mutually stolen car, it can be assumed that there is nothing in either one's past that they want to relive.

"I don't understand," Emma cracked through the commotion, her brow furrowed. "What do they want collecting boys in the first place? What's their angle?"

"I never knew," Hook said.

"So you just threw children to this guy without knowing what you were handing them over to?" Charming growled, his face red and furious, looking as if he half wanted to pop up and do the same as Gold had done.

"Look, if you want specifics, why don't you ask the guy who spent nearly a century in their company?"

All eyes rounded on Neal, who looked up with a wary, exhausted expression on his face.

"I don't know for certain, to be perfectly honest," he admitted. "All I know is when I first got on shore after they took me from your ship, they compared me to a picture. One of them asked 'Is it the one he wants?' and the other shook his head and said no. Then the first told me that I was lucky, that I would get to live. I never saw the picture, so I never knew what the boy they were looking for actually looked like."

"You think it could be Henry?" Regina asked, her voice high and squeaky.

"Why would Peter Pan have a picture of Henry?" Emma asked, hot and confused blood pumping through her veins as her breath seemed to tightened in her chest.

"And have acquired it hundreds of years before he was born?" Snow contributed.

"And even if he is, how would Greg and Tamara know about it?" Charming added.

"We don't have answers to any of these questions," Emma said, so frustrated now that she stood and began to pace just to have some thing to do. "We need more information. We need to find a way onto the island."

"I told you, we can't land if we value our lives," Hook reiterated. "We may have magic on our side, but so do they, and this is their territory. They've been here for centuries, millennia more likely, and they will be able to know every move before we make it."

Emma couldn't deny that the situation felt quite hopeless. She had watched Peter Pan as a child, but had never imagined it like this. True, it had not been her favorite Disney Movie – the idea of staying a child forever had not much appealed to her, considering her childhood had been so terrible. Sometimes, she felt like she already was in Neverland, that she was a lost boy floating around trying to take care of her fellow foster siblings because there were no true parents in the picture. Except without magic, or fairies, or flying shadows.

"If the only way to land on shore is with a boy to trade," Neal started in a low voice, first looking at no one but instead at the wooden floor boards at his feet, "then lets give them a boy to trade."

With that, he looked up at the group in front of him.

"What do you mean?" Hook asked, his brow creased. Neal turned and addressed his father.

"When you first found me at my apartment in New York, you made offer, do you remember it?" he said. "You said you could turn the clock back."

"I did," Gold said, nodding slowly.

"So do it," Neal insisted. "Make me fourteen again. We can land on the island and Hook can trade me to them like he did so many years ago. For all they know, I've been camped out hidden in Neverland for the last twenty years since I ran away."

"Absolutely not," Gold protested. "Out of the question."

"They'll recognize me, they already know what I look like, it will be completely plausible," Neal insisted, standing now and facing Hook. "You handed me over to them once, for all they know why wouldn't you do it again? I can infiltrate the lost boys, try and find out more about what's going on."

"Won't you get in trouble?" Emma asked, and for a moment she realized how much she sounded like a very small child. "For having run away?"

Neal's meaningful stare and lack of response was answer enough. Whatever awaited his 14-year-old self on that island was nothing good, and he knew it. The group grew silent at they realized the sacrifice Neal was suggesting of himself. But each person only had to look into his face to know that it was no use arguing. His mind was set. Emma knew there was no stopping him, but she had also just gotten him back, and she wasn't about to let go of him in a hurry. So she said the only thing she could think to say.

"You're not going alone."

* * *

**And yes, while this will continue to be an adventure-based story, there will definitely be some Charming family coddling and tension when the past catches up with them once Emma is turned back into her twelve-year-old body. Stay tuned!**


	4. Convincing

**I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I have no excuse!**

It took a great deal of convincing, especially of the parental figures on board.

"I'm a grown woman, you can't tell me what I can and cannot do," Emma had retorted when he father went so far as to use the word 'forbid'.

"You lost the right make any sort of parenting decisions regarding me a long time ago," Neal had hurled at his own father's protests.

It began to feel like old times again – Neal and Emma against the rest of the world, holding strong and stubborn. It would have bonded them if Neal hadn't continued to try and dissuade Emma between his own stubborn resistance.

"They are the lost _boys_," he had insisted. "They don't take girls."

"I was a scrawny kid," Emma countered. "People mistook me for a boy all the time before I hit puberty. Turn me back far enough and tuck my hair in a hat and I can pass for a boy."

"Emma, please," Snow had pleaded, stepping forward and taking both her daughter's hands in hers. "It's too dangerous."

"Don't bother," Neal had said, waving a hand exasperatedly as he turned took a few strides down the dock.

"What is that supposed to mean," Emma snapped at him. He turned to face her.

"It means you're stubborn as all get out, and you always have been," he accused. He didn't know why his tone was so hostile, it was one of the characteristics he always loved about her. Perhaps it was his fear for her that made his voice so harsh now and he pointed an accusatory finger at her. "Once you get an idea in that thick skull of yours, you never drop it!"

"Hey!" Charming barked, stepping forward in a surge of protective instinct and coming between his daughter and the man pointing an aggressive finger at her. "Back off."

"No, he's right," Snow said, her eyes still on her daugther's face as both she and Charming turned to look at her incredulously. "You are incredibly stubborn."

"Gee, I wonder where she got that from," Regina said in a snide voice as she strode past the family tangle, beginning to pace with her arms folded across her chest. Snow shot her a dark look over her shoulder.

"What a Charming family dynamic you all have going here," Hook quipped from where he stood a bit to the side, leaning cockily against the railing with a snarky smirk on his face. Neal turned towards him.

"I'm a lot bigger than the last time we met, and I have absolutely no problem punching you in the face, so unless you want a fist in your eye, you can just keep your trap shut."

Hook blinked at him, his expression not faltering. He looked over at Emma, his eyebrows raised.

"Wow, you chose one just like your father, love," he said directly to her, his cheek still sore with the blow Charming had dealt him back in Storybrooke. "Practically a replica."

Neal made to advance, but Regina paced in front of him and peeled him back before he even got started.

"Maybe we should stop worrying about the people on this boat who are all fully grown and capable adults and start thinking about the completely helpless twelve-year-old _kid_ that is most likely already in that jungle of horror!" she barked.

That got everyone back on track, and all parents involved swallowed their fear as a hazy plan began to unfold. While Emma was eager to begin immediately, the sun was beginning to set and Hook refused to land on the shore in the dark. When Neal agreed with him, recounting that Neverland was most dangerous at night, Emma dropped her protests. This landed the crew, exhausted and anxious, sitting strewn about the deck as evening grew to night with nothing but concerning thoughts of the next day bouncing around their heads to pass the time.

"What's it like?" Emma asked, looking directly at Neal from her perch folded on top of one of the cargo boxes, her knees pressed up against her chest. "There?"

"In Neverland?" Neal clarified. Emma nodded. "It's like…" he was trying to find a way to describe it that someone would understand. The pain and the loneliness and the hopelessness of all those children who didn't have someone to love them, until they banded together to love each other as best they could. And then he realized he was talking to the one person might actually understand in an instant. Understand from experience. "It's like the homes."

He and Emma shared a look and he saw harsh memories slide into her eyes as she swallowed hard.

"What homes?" Regina prodded, at as much of a loss as the rest of the crowd on the ship.

"He means the group homes," Emma explained, not taking his eyes off of Neal's. His gaze was almost apologetic that she had to go back into somewhere like that. "The places we used to go while we were waiting for the ACS to find us another family. Full of children whose families didn't want them."

"If you don't want to go…" Neal pressed her hopefully. He did not like the idea that she would be diving into danger with him.

"Nice try," she smirked. "Of course I'm going. I just… I need some air." She extracted herself from her perch and walked off towards the lower deck, dropping down the stairs and out of sight for a second before she became visible again at the bow of the boat, leaning on the railing as the sea breeze swept her hair back. Snow's eyes followed her in concern, then looked up to meet her husbands, both asking each other the same question – should one of them follow?

"Aw, look, we scared her away," Regina jested.

"She wouldn't be the Miss Swan we all know and love if she weren't running away from something," Gold said with a smirk in the direction of the blonde across the deck. Snow was about to defend her daughter and chastise the other two, but Neal beat her to it as he whipped around and confronted them with an accusatory glare.

"It's not funny," he retorted sharply, cutting the biting humor of the comment down to size. "What happened to her in that system wasn't funny. Do you know what it is like to feel nobody wants you? To know that the people who were supposed to love you abandoned you, that you are completely and utterly alone? To know the only thing you have in the whole world, in any world, is yourself, and no one else? Because she does. She spent her entire life feeling that way. Like she wasn't good enough, like she wasn't wanted."

Neal wondered if he was only talking about Emma, or if somehow he had ended up also talking about himself. He turned to face his father squarely.

"And do you know why she grew up that way? Because one hundred years before she was even born you made a cowardly decision and then couldn't live with the consequences of that decision. You let me go, and then you regretted it, and you tore hundreds of lives apart in order to get me back when, if you had just come with me in the first place, none of this would have happened."

It was too much for Neal, the memories and the pain, and the slight pang of knowing that he, in some small way, had played a part in the hard shell Emma had built around her from the years of abuse and misplaced trust and betrayal. As he threw these words at his father and saw his face slide into shame, he realized he should also be chastising himself. He had done those things to Emma the same way his father had. In the end, he really proved to be his father's son.

He stood suddenly and made to walk away, but upon seeing Emma alone on the lower deck, he was afraid to descend the stairs. Instead, he made his way up and stood by the wheel of the ship. Etched in the wood in front of it was the compass Hook had drawn for him when he had been teaching him to sail the ship, in that brief moment when Neal had trusted him before he found out the truth. For that brief moment when Neal thought he might have found a home aboard this ship, before realizing that it was just a trick. Like all the places he had ever called home. He saw now that Hook had scratched out the lettering. He wondered how long he had waited after Neal, then Baelfire, had been abducted before getting rid of this reminder of his time on the ship.

The rest of the crew was left in a guilty silence in the wake of Neal's tirade as they watched him walk away. Snow's eyes swiveled back to her daughter, her maternal concern doubled. She rarely spoke to Emma about life in the system. She could tell her daughter didn't want to talk about it, and if she was being perfectly honest with herself, Snow was glad not to. She wished they could all just pretend like it had never happened, but it had happened. She wondered what her daughter needed right now – to be alone, or for a parent to come and comfort her. She couldn't tell and the fact that she didn't know made her feel completely incompetent. Her thoughts strayed to the child now in her stomach, and she nearly involuntarily placed her hand on top of her abdomen before she stopped herself. She had a fully grown daughter that she hadn't raised, and she had no idea how to be a mother.

Gold eyed his son's back hesitantly, wavering with the same decision as the princess beside her. Follow his troubled son and engage in a conversation, or let him be. He seemed on the verge of resolving on the latter when, of all people, he caught eyes with Hook. Hook's glare seemed to bear into him from across the deck and as he caught his attention, the pirate's eyes darted from him to Bae at the wheel of the ship, and then back again, his eyebrows raised as if challenging, "if you don't go after him, I will."

Gold would not be outdone by Hook when it came to his son. It was bad enough Milah had chosen him, but Bae was all Gold had left. So he dragged himself up and forward until he was directly beside, and slightly behind, his son. At first he didn't exactly know how to start, and the pair stood in a terse silence in the evening breeze, Bae sensing his father behind him but refusing to speak first.

"I was just trying to make things right," Gold said in a small voice that made Neal look over at him. In an instant, he had ceased to be the dark one and had instead turned into a very lost and confused man. Neal felt the roles reverse, like he was the parent, and his father the child who kept screwing up, but he would love him anyways. Neal almost laughed when at last he realized that it had somehow always been like that. Sometimes, his father shocked him by how much he could seem like a lost puppy. It was impossible to stay mad at him when he was like that.

"I know you were," Neal offered, trying to strike a balance between his anger at the past and sympathy for how his father was feeling. As he looked back down at Emma on the bow of the ship, he could only sympathize with him. "I was too. I was just trying to do right by her, to get her back to her family. I didn't know there was a kid."

"You love her," Gold said, noting the longing in his son's eyes. It was not a question, and Neal felt no need to answer it. At this point, it was merely a statement of fact. Gold followed his gaze to the blonde at the bow of the ship. "You should go to her. She needs someone right now."

"Pretty sure she doesn't want anything to do with me," Neal mused, trying to keep his voice indifferent. "I left her. Twice. Her words, not mine."

"We only ever get so angry when we really feel we have something to lose," Gold offered wisely. "She loves you back, or she wouldn't be so angry at what you did. Letting go. So go make it right."

Neal turned to squint at his father, wondering if this was some kind of joke he was playing on him, or if he was honestly giving his son advice. There had been many times growing up when he had wished he could have asked his father's advice about something, but he wasn't there. Somehow that made him angry, now having it given to him, but he swallowed that when he realized that he truly needed the insight. He looked back at Emma, took a deep breath, and turned towards the staircase to the lower deck. Gold tried to hide his smile as he watched him descend.

Steps from her, Neal paused. He was sure she knew he had followed her from the echo his footsteps left on the floorboards below him, but she had not moved or indicated in any other way she was aware of her presence.

"Hey," he started gently and innocently. She did not change her stance, but she cocked her chin over her shoulder and eyed him with half her face. It was stern, but not uninviting. More the kind of stern he recognized from when she was trying to hide her emotions by freezing her face. "Mind if I join?"

Emma did not respond, and, knowing her well, Neal took her silence for consent and stepped closer, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry I snapped earlier," Emma offered stiffly, her pride siphoning away ever so slightly. "I get that way when I'm stressed."

"I know," Neal said with a small smile as he pressed closer behind her. "I remember."

Emma was surprised to find that the comment did not offend her. In fact, it made her feel surprisingly happy. Like she had a family, a past, someone who really knew her inside and out. She felt him move closer, and surprised herself by allowing her head to relax onto his shoulder. She felt his arms wrap around her.

"I didn't think I'd see you again," she explained. "I had been trying to come to terms with it for days. Henry went missing, and then you were there in the water and I just couldn't let myself hope…"

"Hey," he cooed in a warm voice, "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."

Emma nearly snorted.

"Not going anywhere? You're going back in time. And you're going into the depths of Neverland, which, despite everything I grew up believing, is apparently one of the most dangerous places in the world."

"You're coming with me." Emma felt the soft warmth of his breath on the back of her neck as he spoke. "You know they're going to dote all over you when you are back to your pre-pubescent self, right?" he cautioned, a slight smirk on his face as he cast her a sideways at the Charming couple on the upper deck, who had stood and moved alone to one side along the railing to speak with each other more privately.

"Right back at you, Baelfire," Emma bit back, unable to hide her own grin as she nodded in Gold's direction. Neal sighed in frustration and agreement. "We will just have to use really big words and really mature voices to remind them we are actually 30 years old."

"I'm actually nearly 117 years old," Neal interjected.

"And we can throw some swear words in there too to be extra sure they remember," Emma said, not commenting on Neal's interlude.

"Or we could just let them catch us making out in the closet to remind them we are fully grown adults," Neal suggested, grinning in the curls of her long hair.

"I'm pretty sure pre-teens make out in the closet as well," Emma told him, smirking. "Probably more so than adults."

"You're very right," Neal agreed, but his good-humored smile became a grimace as the conversation died down and squinted out into the setting sun. "We'll just have to do whatever we have to do," he pondered quietly, "to get him back."

"Hey," Emma assured him, placing her hand gently on top of his where it lay on the railing of the ship. He looked down into her eyes. "None of that self-doubting attitude. Can you think of a time when you and I weren't able to steal something that we wanted?"

Across the ship, Snow noticed Neal and her daughter smiling at each other, the words he had spoken about the pain of her childhood echoing in her memory. She began to realize that she didn't even know how the two of them had met. With Cora and then her own guilt over killing her, then August's near-murder, Regina's disappearance and Greg and Tamara's scheme, they hadn't really had the time to discuss the details.

"It's odd," Snow said from down the dock from where she stood beside her husband eavesdropping on her daughter. "We have this whole history, this whole life story that she never knew about, but sometimes I forget that she does too."

Charming turned from where he was looking out over the water and followed his wife's gaze to her daughter, now in Neal's arms. He narrowed his eyes, a protective discomfort sprouting in him.

"I'll just be glad when he's fourteen again and I don't have to worry about him having his hands all over my daughter."

"You think fourteen-year-old boys have _less _hormones?" Snow said skeptically, raising her eyebrows at her husband's faulty logic.

"I think fourteen-year-old boys are easier to pound into the ground if necessary," Charming explained curtly.

"Not fourteen-year-old boys whose father is the Dark One," Snow cautioned good-humouredly. She caught her husband's concerned and disturbed eye as he continued to watch Emma across the dock. "You think he's not good enough for her?"

"No one's good enough for her," Charming insisted, his face extremely serious, but at that, Snow couldn't help but smile.


	5. Scar Tissue

**A bit of a disclaimer about the last post. Many people mentioned that Neal is supposed to be around 300 years old. While the writer's may have said or intended this, it doesn't really make much sense. Wendy Darling lived around the turn of the twentieth century, confirmed not just by the story but also by the clothing and streets as shown of London in "Second Star to the Right". If Neal was 14 when he fell through to our world, and can't have been more than a year older when he went to Neverland at the most, then came back in time to be 17 when he met Emma at the same age (I'm hoping, because I don't want to get into underaged issues with this show, and since Emma was 17 when she got arrested because her crime was a 'juvy record' as we learned in the first season which means she was minor at the time), then Neal couldn't have been in Neverland longer than 100 years, making him at most 130. Please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm actually very curious.**

**And on with our tale!**

* * *

"Not too young, not too young!" Emma protested as she felt herself growing shorter and shorter. She didn't want to end up some useless toddler.

"You need to be young enough so you can pass for a boy," Gold insisted as he continued.

It was by far the strangest sensation Emma had ever experienced. While all she saw was the anxious faces of her parents and other companions as they watched the process (and in all honesty, she wished they would look away) she felt a strange rush of sensations in her mind and body as she relived the moments of her life in reverse.

As it began, she felt her heart freeze up, which she recognized as the horror she had felt watching Greg and Tamara had dragged Henry into that swirling green void. Before she could blink, it was gone, replaced by a growing heat in her hands that she knew was her body reliving what it was like to absorb the magic from the failsafe alongside Regina. That sensation vanished into a sharp pain in her head which could only be Tamara hitting her with the piece of pipe back in the cannery before she had shot Neal and opened the portal through which he had fallen.

As the process sped up, she became unable to distinguish which sensations corresponded with which events in her past. She just felt a series of dull aches and pains whir through her body as she grew shorter and shorter. At one point, she felt an extreme pain rack her entire body, which she was almost certain was her body re-experiencing Henry's birth. She clenched her teeth and sought Neal's eyes.

Him having gone first, she found the fourteen-year-old Baelfire's eyes staring back at her, though they held the strong and comforting expression that she recognized of the adult Neal. They held her gaze as if to say _Hang in there, it's almost over_. Emma pressed her eyes shut when she felt another strong sensation pulse through her, not in her body but in her heart. She knew what it was, because there was only one time in her life that she had allowed herself to get so vulnerable to feel that strongly –when Neal had abandoned her. She had been in denial about how big a blow to her that had been, but her body did not lie.

As she dove into her adolescent years, the others around her growing taller as she shrank, she began to experience curious rushes of teenage hormones through her brain. Angst and adrenaline and anger. She felt a stark cold sensation that she was sure was from those winter nights she had spent on the street after first leaving the system. She felt a series of bumps and bruises and shots of fear as her body spun through the years of abuse.

When it was finally over, although it had only been a few moments, Emma did not feel younger. She felt years older, her body having just relived nearly her whole life in reverse. She swallowed hard and opened her eyes to face her companions, who now towered over her.

"Oh my God, Emma!" Snow exclaimed, pulling a hand to her lips.

"What?" Emma said, frantically looking down at herself to make sure she was all in one piece. "What's wrong?"

"You have a black eye!" Charming hissed, striding forward and tilting her chin up to get a better look, seeing as she now stood with her head reaching only up to the middle of his chest. Emma felt the familiar slight tenderness at her cheek as her skin stretched against it.

"I got in a fight at school," she said instinctively. She was surprised at how quickly and easily the old lie fell out of her mouth. As if it had only been a few days, instead of nearly two decades, since she had had to use it. "I wasn't exactly the most well-behaved kid."

"Does it hurt?"

"I'm fine, really."

"I can make you a bit younger to avoid the injury, if you'd like, Ms. Swan," Gold offered in an uncharacteristic fit of gallantry. "Take you back to before it happened."

"No, she should keep it," Regina contributed, to which Snow and Charming rounded on her with furious glares. "It makes her look like more of a boy," she explained, shrugging.

"No younger," Emma insisted. She felt young enough already. She could feel all sorts of pre-adolescent hormones coursing through her brain and making her mind go numb. She was pretty sure one of them was the adrenaline still fresh from the night when she had actually received that blow to the face, and several others that she could feel growing sore on her back. "And Regina's right, I'm sure I can use all the masculinizing I can get. Other than the shiner, how do I look?

Snow beamed down at her daughter, trying to hold her maternal tears of joy back. Ever since she had discovered Emma was her long lost daughter, she had imagined what it would have been like to have been there to watch her grow up. Now, with her standing nearly a head shorter, her face young and bright and her youthful body skinny and awkward, she couldn't help but smile.

"You look perfect," she managed, pulling Emma into her arms tightly.

"We said no coddling!" Emma protested, squirming as Charming joined the embrace.

"Humor us," he pleaded, his face too sporting a smile as Snow squeezed tighter. "Just this once."

Emma rolled her eyes and spotted the young Neal giving her an 'I told you so' smirk. She shot him a bitter look before her parents released her from the suffocating jumble, Snow's hand reaching down to tilt her chin upwards adoringly while Charming patted the back of her golden hair.

"Alright, alright, that's enough," she insisted, tugging herself from her parents' grasp. She was beginning to feel a bit like a toy. At one point there she thought the bruises on her back might show, considering she was wearing a spaghetti-strap shirt. She repositioned her hair so that it fanned down her back and covered the marks, turning to face her parents. "We can resume the family reunion after we find my son."

* * *

Hook shook an old rucksack empty onto the cot in his cabin. A few old and tattered pieces of clothing fell out. The young Neal picked at them gingerly, looking at them in awe. Gold sat at the edge of the bed, having followed his son down. He wouldn't get much time with him, he knew, but what time they did have before they landed on shore he wanted to spend in the company of his newly youth-ified son.

"I can't believe you still have these," Neal said.

"Yeah, well, just never got around to throwing them away," Hook shrugged, not meeting his eye as he threw the rucksack back in the closet. "Why don't you use my room to get changed?"

With Neal safely behind the door, Hook sat down on the opposite corner of the bed to wait. The pair shared an awkward silence.

"I forgot how much he used to look like her," Hook breathed finally.

"He looked exactly like her," Gold agreed in a tense voice. Hook shot him a look. Gold was just staring at the door to the Captain's quarters. Hook looked down at his hands in his lap. "Remind me again how it is that my son ended up on this ship after he left the enchanted forest?"

"I found him floating in the sea," Hook shrugged. "I've no idea how he landed there."

"It doesn't make sense," Gold said, so quietly he may have only meant it for himself. "The Blue Fairy gave him a bean that would take him to a land without magic. Why would it take him here?"

"He said he came to save a family he loved from being torn apart," Hook recalled from all those years back. "I can't imagine he was talking about you," he sniggered, "by that time he had only bitter memories to recount of you. He called you a coward."

Hook did not mention the fact that the young boy on the other side of the door had also reserved the same term for himself just before he had been abducted from his ship by the Lost Boys.

Gold did not doubt that what Hook said was true, but it did nothing to quell his anger at the statement. In a flash he was on his feet and had dragged Hook up by his lapel and pinned him against the curved wall of the cabin.

"And what does that make you, huh, Hook? Cowardly enough to sell him to these demons, even though he was her son? You listen to me," Gold hissed threateningly, his vicious breath brushing Hook's face inches away. "If this is some trick, some trap you are sending him to like before, I will make you pay."

"You've got some nerve threatening me," Hook growled, grabbing Gold's wrists at his lapel and throwing them off himself, "seeing as that boy would still have a mother if you hadn't wrenched her heart from her chest."

Gold seemed about respond in kind, his eyes bulging, but before he could a small voice came from the direction of the door to the Captain's quarters.

"I'm not a boy anymore," Neal said, his voice wary as he eyed the two men at each other's throats. "And don't forget that. Just because I'm back in this body doesn't mean I'm not actually a fully-grown and -capable adult. I know what I'm getting myself into. Better than either of you do, because if you'll recall I'm the only one of the three of us who ever spent any actual time among the Lost Boys. So spare me any protective guilt. I don't need either one of you to look out for me, I've been doing it on my own for years. Thanks to you both."

He exited the cabin without another word, or even a backward glance as both wounded men stood awkwardly and watched him leave.

* * *

Once alone in the cabin below deck, Snow couldn't help but just sit and stare at her daughter as she prepared herself. Emma tried hard not to role her eyes at her mother's less-than-subtle maternal attention.

"Ugh!" she sighed as she looked at herself in the mirror. "I forgot how difficult my hair used to be."

"Your hair is beautiful. Here, let me do it," Snow offered, stepping forward with a smile. She had always dreamed of doing her daughter's hair. She swept the soft golden strands back. But as she did so, she felt her daughter wince. "What's wrong?"

"I'm fine," Emma said evasively, but Snow blinked down at her daughter as she swept the hair away from her back. In her sleeveless tank top she could see long, red, festering welts crossing over her pale skin.

"Emma, what are these?"

"It's nothing." Emma shrugged her mother off her, avoiding her eyes as she turned her back towards the curved cabin wall and pulled her long hair to one side to braid. "Here, I can do it myself."

"It's not nothing," Snow insisted, her stubbornness flaring. Though she didn't like to admit it to herself, Emma liked it when her mother was stubborn, because it reminded her of herself. It was one of the few times she saw the resemblance.

Emma sighed as she felt Snow sidestep her and turn her by the shoulder so that her back faced the dim light of the cabin. On it shone several long, painful lashes. Snow gasped.

"Oh, Emma!" was all she was able to breathe out before Emma cut her off, her tone defensive.

"I told you, I got in a fight at school," Emma insisted, making to dart away again, but Snow held out an arm to stop her.

"These aren't fight marks, Emma," she said, eyeing them with horror and tracing them gingerly with the tips of her fingers. Emma did not want to admit that the light touch did feel soothing on the sore wounds. "I know; I've been in my fair share of fights. What happened to you?"

"What do you want me to say?" Emma snapped, tearing away from her mother's hold on her and facing her defiantly. "You want me to tell you which of my foster father's it was? You want me to tell you his name? Because I can't remember, they were all like that. I can't remember which particular one left these bruises. From the feel of them, it must have been one of the ones who favored belts."

For a moment, Snow couldn't find her voice. It was stuck somewhere behind her enraged anger. She had to swallow twice before the stuttering words would come out.

"They hit you?"

"Come on, Mary Margaret, you lived in the other world as long as I did," Emma challenged. "You must have heard stories about what happened in the system. If it wasn't me it was just going to be some other kid. At least I knew how to handle it."

"Emma…"

"Don't. I am not a charity case." Snow could see in her eyes how often she had been referred to as such and how furious the term made her. "I am not your little princess to coddle and console. Just because I look like a child doesn't mean I'm not actually an adult. I have a job to do, and a son to find. I won't let him grow up knowing the same abuse I did. I won't let it happen."

"I'm not saying you should," Snow said.

"Then what are you saying?" Emma asked bluntly, cutting Snow with a challenging stare. Snow swallowed hard, looking for the right words. What was it she was trying to say? What did her daughter need most right now, and how could she, a very unpracticed mother herself, give it to her?

"I'm saying you should come here at let me dress those cuts," she decided finally, the offer coming out in a firm but soft voice. "They won't be any help to you if they fester and get infected while you're out there looking for Henry."

Emma paused frozen, regarding her mother cautiously. She knew Snow, or had known Mary Margaret, and while she was certain the woman she knew could have, and would have, responded thusly, she was also hesitant to accept any kind of tenderness regarding her injuries. Especially her twelve-year-old self. In her experience, all such offers had been driven by ulterior motives. For a moment, her adolescent instincts threatened to decline the offer, to turn and run. But her adult mind took over. Snow just wanted to help. Emma could sympathize with the maternal notion. And, to be fair, Snow's logic was sound. Her lashes would prove a nuisance in the wild if not treated properly. Searching for any other reasonable reason to decline, she could think of none, and eventually stepped forward, clenching her jaw, all at once desperate for and cautious of her mother's comforting, soothing touch on her sore back.

Emma crept closer slowly, as if every instinct within her was telling her to storm out, but she fought them. Snow, to her credit, did not make to rush her. She waited, patient and still, standing beside the bed, until her daughter, face still defiant but softening, stood directly beside her. Without a word, Emma lay herself down on the cot on her stomach, pulling her hair to the side so that Snow could see them plainly.

Snow's gasp caught in her throat, and she was grateful that it had not escaped her lips. She was sure the sound would have scared her sensitive daughter away, back into her reclusive and self-protective little ball. She could count the strokes, half a dozen at least, lingering sharp and red on her pale skin. Snow swallowed hard and reached for a cloth folded on the table beside the bed. She dampened it in warm water and sat beside her daughter, taking a deep breath before she began to pad the fabric gently on the wounds.

At first, Emma's body winced and tensed, and Snow nearly stopped, not wanting to cause her daughter any more pain. But the mother and makeshift nurse inside her persisted and soon she felt the adolescent before her relax, her hesitancy to enjoy the soothing feeling siphoning away slowly but surely.

"His name was Clive," Emma murmured. She didn't know why she felt like opening up. She felt her guard was down. She felt as young as her body was. She wanted this moment to remain what it was – pure and simple and familiar. But the words spilled out of her nonetheless. Snow did not respond, and Emma appreciated her solemn silence. It made it easier to continue. "I lied when I said I didn't remember. I remember all of them. Every one."

Snow's lips quivered as she fought back tears, listening to her daughter recount the horrors of her past. She felt her face grow hot with rage and grief.

"He caught me sneaking in his office one night. I was looking for a pen to finish my homework. Mine had run out of ink and I didn't have any money to buy more. He told me I was too stupid to do well in school, and that I was never going to make anything of myself anyway, so why bother? He'd been drinking. By that age I had learned to tell the signs."

She gave a short, quiet sniff. For Emma, the memories were still raw and fresh. While this incident had happened many years ago, now in her twelve-year-old body, she could still feel the residual adrenaline coursing through her. The chemical reactions remained the same. They were fresh in her head. All of a sudden, she couldn't help herself. She began to cry silent tears, tears she had never let herself shed when the incident had actually occurred, although she had desperately wanted to.

Snow's heart nearly melted inside her. She wanted to wrap her baby in her arms and hold her and tell her it was alright to cry. She feared Emma might somehow feel it was inappropriate. After all, while she looked like a pre-teen before her, she was in fact nearly thirty years old. Instead, Snow continued her dressing. As gently as she could, she reached down and peeled the bottom of Emma's shirt up, revealing a second set of dark, red lashes. She felt two of the tragic and furious tears she had been attempting to stem drop from her eyes as she saw them. Emma winced.

"Sorry," Snow hissed guiltily, instinctively pulling her hands back.

"No, I'm sorry," Emma said thickly through her tears. "I'm sorry I'm broken. I'm sorry that other people broke me, and I'm sorry that I let them. I want to be this perfect daughter for you, this strong person without any weaknesses, but I…"

"Oh, my sweet girl," Snow cooed, flipping her daughter lightly so that she could see her face. "My darling baby girl. You are perfect. You have been from the moment I lay eyes on you. You never deserved any of this, you know that right?"

"Doesn't matter," Emma said evasively, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. "Can't change the past."

"It does matter," Snow insisted. "It matters that you know just how special you are, just how loved…"

"Hook says we are about to dock," came Regina's voice as she wrenched open the cabin door, "so I hope you're…" she paused at the scene she saw. Emma jumped quickly off the cot and turned her face away, but not before Regina noted her red, puffy eyes. "Is everything ok?"

"Fine," Emma said, pulling her hair over her shoulder and braiding it quickly before pinning it viciously to her scalp. She made no attempt to hide the scars from Regina, who also gasped as she saw them, but said nothing as Emma cast her too a challenging glare. She tossed on a baggy t-shirt.

"Let's get this over with," she muttered, side-stepping Regina out into the narrow hallway. In her absence, neither Regina nor Snow moved for a moment. Then Snow stood slowly from her perch on the end of the bed and lightly swept the tears from her own cheeks as Regina turned from the doorway and looked at her questioningly.

"What were those marks?"

"She's back in her twelve-year-old body," Snow explained, piercing Regina with an accusatory stare. "Turns out her twelve-year-old body was battered." She took a few steps until she was level with Regina, her eyes flaring with anger. "Thanks to you and your curse."

She allowed the accusation to resonate a few moments, watching the ripples of shame and shock cross over Regina's face at the accusation.

"I was the one who hurt you Regina," she said, her voice a low, desperate growl as she fought with the emotion creeping through her. "I was the one who told your mother about you and Daniel and cause her to kill him. Yet somehow, the person you ended up punishing the most was her. An innocent child. She didn't do anything to you, yet somehow she ended up with the raw end of this deal because she happened to be my daughter. How would you like it if someone decided that Henry should pay for all your sins?"

The devastating comparison caught Regina off guard and nearly knocked the wind right out of her.

"After everything, he nearly ended up growing up in the same system she did," Snow reminded her. "If that failsafe had detonated, you think he would have ended up in some happy-go-lucky family? We would all have been killed and he would have been the one to suffer. That's what happens, Regina, when all you care about is revenge. Innocents get hurt."

With her tirade complete, she side-stepped her step-mother and followed her daughter down the narrow hallway, leaving Regina to shiver in the ripples of her guilt as they echoed around the wooden cabin walls.

* * *

When Neal reached the brig, Charming was waiting there. He looked around the room, but the Prince was alone.

"Emma's not ready yet?" he asked.

"She's still getting changed," Charming told him.

"Oh."

The two stood in a bit of an awkward silence. A few times Charming seemed on the verge of saying something, then to think better of it. Neal mostly just attempted to avoid his eyes, which was difficult in such a small room.

"Look, I don't know what happened between you and my daughter," Charming said finally, and Neal winced. He was not looking forward to the day when Charming finally found out he had turned Emma into the police for a crime he committed, then left her knocked up in jail at the age of eighteen. "And to be perfectly honest, I don't think I want to know," Charming continued. "But whatever happened in the past, I'm asking you now, man to man, please look out for her."

Neal relaxed a bit. That was a promise he was more than happy to make.

"I won't let anything happen to her," he assured the Prince in front of him. "I promise."

Charming nodded, still frowning. Neal was about to say something more when his father appeared behind him in the doorway, followed by Hook. Not long after that, Emma came down the hallway.

"Everything alright?" he asked, noting her red eyes.

"Fine," she insisted, her harsh eyes daring him to push the matter further. He looked up to catch his wife's eyes as she followed through the doorway, who nodded soberly to affirm that he should in fact let the question drop. "Let's just get this over with."

She made to walk past her father into the cell of the brig, where Neal was waiting for her, but Charming caught her arm and pulled her back.

"Hold up there," he said, squatting down to her height.

"I swear to God, David, if you pull some mushy Daddy crap," Emma started, avoiding his eyes, but she was cut off as he swept her into a soft, tender hug, lifting her off the ground. Over her shoulder, Snow gave a watery smile.

"Please be careful," Charming whispered in his daughter's ear before placing her back on her feet. She blinked up at him as he smiled down at her. She couldn't help but think what a great father he would have been if he'd been given the chance. What a great father he would be to the new baby Snow was carrying right now.

"Good luck," he bid her, and she was able to manage a nod and smile, though she was somewhat lost for words. She turned and stepped into the cell, taking Neal's hand as he guided her through the bars. Hook clanked the door shut and turned the key. For a moment, the adults just looked at their children, now actually kids again, who stared right back at them, no one willing to say goodbye.

"You all need to go back to your cabins," Hook said finally. "The less they know about who's on this ship, the better. We're nearly there."

Even still no one seemed to want to move. Finally, Neal looked his father in the eyes.

"I'll be fine, Papa," he said genuinely and, after sharing a meaningful glance, Gold nodded once, swallowing hard, and acquiesced to exit the room. Snow stepped forward and tugged Charming's hand, who seemed unable to wrench his eyes from his daughter.

"Come on," she said quietly.

"I'll see you in three days," Emma promised them, which is when they had agreed to meet up and discuss the plan after Emma and Neal were able to get some intel. Snow nodded, trying to hold back her terrified anxiety as she flashed one final smile at her daughter, trailing her husband as they both left the room. When they were gone, a strange silence fell that was broken only by a number of echoing footsteps above them.

"They've boarded," Hook said. He flashed the young pair a dangerous glance, bracing them and himself, before striding out of the room himself and closing the door behind him on his way to meet the Lost Boys on the deck.

Emma took Neal's hand and squeezed her fear into it.

"We're really doing this aren't we?" She cast him a worried glance. "No turning back now."

"We're doing it for Henry," he reminded her, although she noticed his color had paled drastically. She took a deep shaky breath.


	6. Nothing Changes

**Hey there, quick apology/disclaimer. I know the posting pace is slow. I had higher hopes rounding into the summer, but I have begun my own initiative teaching creative writing workshops in Africa and have now moved from Ghana to Cote D'Ivoire, so I've been swamped. I'd like to promise to do better, but I'm honestly doing the best I can right now with everything I have going on. The story will continue – slowly, but it will continue!**

* * *

"Remember," Neal reminded her under his breath as they trudged through the jungle, beset by a number of older, taller, more menacing boys, "my name is Bae, here, not Neal.

With her hands bound in front of her, Emma's mind was reeling with the list of things she was trying to keep in mind as she dove further into the undergrowth. She had to remember to speak in a low voice, always keep her hat on, and refer to herself as a boy. She also had to remember to not think too hard about her situation, or her missing son, which was something she was continually failing at. Henry was somewhere out here in this jungle, which was more menacing than magical, and while Emma at least had Neal – or Bae – by her side, her son was completely and utterly alone, save for his vicious and treacherous captors. But most importantly, at this particular point in time, she had to remember not to trip.

"I don't think I'll have as much trouble remembering your fake name as you will have remembering to call me a boy," Emma said, her breath growing heavy as she tried to keep up the pace while not entangling her unsteady feet in the roots on the ground.

"No talking!" came the brusque voice of one of the larger, dull-minded boys surrounding them, and Emma felt herself shoved unceremoniously, the forest floor shooting up to meet her face. She was not quick enough with her bound hands to break her fall, and felt her cheek seer in pain as it met the rough bark of one of the roots.

"Don't shove h… him around!" Neal barked in protest, catching himself at the last minute before divulging her true gender and stepping towards Emma, but before he could bend down the boy at the front of the party rounded on him and pinned him aggressively against a tree. He was smaller than the others, leaner and meaner, but clearly more clever and, therefore, the leader. His long face shone with a stony anger that could almost pass for ambivalence if it weren't for the bite in his voice.

"I don't know where you get off ordering us around, maggot," he whispered aggressively, his face inches from Neal's whose feet dangled inches from the ground. "You've already got nothing good waiting for you when Pan gets back. Many have tried to escape in the past, but none of have succeeded as long as you did. Some of the other boys thought you'd made it out of Neverland for good. I have to admit, I began to wonder myself after a decade or so. I don't know where you were hiding out for all those years, but you can be sure that Pan will wring it out of you upon his return."

"Leave him alone!" Emma demanded, struggling to remember to keep her tone low as she struggled to her feet and lunged forward, but the lean boy flung her back with a flick of his hand.

"If I were you, I'd stay far away from this one," he cautioned her in a sour voice, squinting down at her before turning his intimidation back to Neal. His lips curled into a sadistic smile as he whispered, "he's got nothing good waiting for him back at camp."

Slowly he lowered a panting Neal back to the ground and continued the march forward. Emma and Neal shared a fearful look before being forced to follow. Emma was beginning to realize just how vulnerable their situation was, and was growing increasingly uncomfortable with it.

Emma had forgotten what it was like to be smaller and weaker than everyone else. She had received a number of sharp reminders ever since the lost boys had boarded the ship, not the least of which was when Hook himself had dragged both she and Neal from their cell in the brig and thrown them at the feet of the small party of boys that had followed him below deck. Emma was glad her parents had not stuck around to see their abduction, and now understood why Hook had insisted they remain in their cabins. Emma could not picture her father, in all his gallant pride, standing idly by while Hook tossed his now pre-teen daughter around. As it was she could practically see the steam coming from Neal's ears in indignation, but he stayed silent. He, above anyone else, knew what was at stake here.

"I thought you left Neverland twenty years ago," the leader, a thin pale boy with long, greasy and sallow eyes was saying to Hook.

"Thirty, actually."

"Wow, has it been that long? I guess time flies when you don't get any older. What brought you back?"

"There was nothing for me anywhere else," Hook improvised and Emma couldn't help but detect a hint of truth in his bitter voice. "Thought I might as well come back to a place where, at the very least, I'll always look dapper." He pulled out a wince that could pass for a smile if you weren't looking too hard. "I found these two squirming around on a dingy. Recognized him as one of the ones I pulled out of the water decades back. Thought he might be worth something to you."

"Hardly," the boy scoffed, narrowing his eyes as he crouched and pulled Neal roughly to his feet. Emma disliked the way his lip curled. "This one was always much more trouble than he was worth. I'd started to think I'd never have to see your scabbed little face again, maggot. But Pan will be pleased when he gets back, nonetheless. He doesn't like boys who get away from him. It threatens his authority."

"When he gets back?" Hook had repeated. "He's gone?"

"He's traveling," the boy answered cryptically. "We'll put this one on the pile of things that require his attention when he returns. It's becoming quite a large and intriguing pile indeed. Very exciting things happening in Neverland these past few days."

"What exciting things?" Hook asked, trying to seem nonchalant. Emma stretched her ears and tried to keep her face from burning as she too was dragged to her feet and the other boys, much bigger, began binding her hands.

"That's not really any of your business, is it?" the thin boy sneered. "Now, what do you want for these two?"

"Five days," Hook requested.

"Two," the boy bargained.

"Three."

"Done. You know the rules. Keep away from the mountain and the rest is fair game But we're not responsible for you if you run into one of our boys and get in the way, and as always, the mermaids and the Indians are your problem."

"Glad to know the rules haven't changed," Hook said.

"Nothing changes in Neverland. You have three days," the leader clarified, then he turned and swept from the cabin, calling behind him, "get these two into the row boat and lets get off this piece of junk."

Emma saw Hook's jaw twitch at the jibe. As one of the boys grabbed her roughly by the shoulder, she caught his eyes and he was unable to mask his genuine fear for her. She managed a small smile to tell that the sympathy, though relatively useless, was still appreciated.

By the time they got to the camp, Emma's legs were sore and raw. She felt the oppressive hand of one of the larger boys on her shoulder guide her as she came around the bend and marveled at what she saw. An elaborate slew of leather tents that covered not one but two layers of the forest: those on the ground and those in the trees, somewhat like tree houses.

"It hasn't changed a bit," Bae marvelled under his breath. Emma glanced at him, unable to tell if his voice was bitter or nostalgic.

"Nothing changes in Neverland," the thin-faced boy said sharply. "You two are in luck. We just lost a couple in an Indian raid a few days ago, so these two are free." He flung back the entrance to one of the tents and the larger boys tossed Bae, then Emma, inside. "We're already at curfew, so I don't want to see your ugly faces until role call tomorrow morning. And if you try running… well…" his lips curled into a smile as he bored down on Bae, "let's just say, you already know where that path leads."

With that he swung the flap closed, leaving the pair in darkness.

"You alright?" Neal asked, reaching up with his bound hands to gently touch where her cheek had grazed the tree roots on her fall.

"I've had worse," she shrugged. "Let's find something to cut these ropes with, shall we?"

After feeling around, Neal found a rock, and cut Emma's bonds. She in turn cut his and they sat in an awkward silence, rubbing their sore wrists.

"Is this how it was before?" Emma asked tentatively.

"Essentially," Neal responded dejectedly, avoiding her eyes. Before she could say anything comforting, they heard a discreet noise from outside.

"Bae?" came a small voice came from under the flapping bottom of the tent. "Bae, is that you?"

"Ricky?" Neal answered. A small face peeped through a gap in the tent, sporting a huge grin.

"Bae, it is you!" the boy said gleefully, beginning to peel the leather back further and slide his way into the tree house. "I thought I saw you walking in with Barb, but I wasn't sure!"

"It's definitely past curfew, Ricky, if someone sees you…"

"Oh, let them toss me in the pit," Ricky shrugged, persisting until he was fully through the flap and then lunging for Neal in a brotherly embrace. "Lord knows breaking curfew isn't worth a skinning. There are too few of us left now, they need every boy they can get."

Behind this first boy, others began to appear, slipping their way through the leather to greet their old friend, huge smiles spread across their faces.

"Dan! Toby! Serif!" Neal exclaimed as they all clamored in, and Emma couldn't help but smile as they all piled into a dogged embrace together, Neal nearly toppling over.

"We thought you'd made it out!" one of them said.

"I thought so too," Neal said, throwing Emma a swift glance. "Hook caught me. Again."

"That bastard," one of the boys muttered. "We'll pay him back, don't you worry."

"Who's your friend?" a squat boy with red hair asked as the group broke apart.

"I'm Emmett," Emma said, clearing her voice to ensure it remained at a low octave. They had decided on a male equivalent of her name so that if one of them slipped up every now and again people might not notice.

"I picked him up along the way," Neal said, coming over and clapping her on the back. "Don't worry. He's good people. Emmett, this is Ricky," he motioned to the first boy that had entered with a round face and sandy hair, "Dan, Toby and Serif." He pointed in turn to a tall African-American boy, a freckled red-head and a bony boy with olive skin and dark eyes.

"How did you arrive here, Emmett?" Ricky asked, folding his legs Indian style beneath him as he settled himself on the dirt floor. The others followed suit.

"I, um…" Emma started, casting Neal a worried glance. They hadn't really come up with her entire back-story yet, and she was so bewildered by the day's events that she couldn't really come up with something on the spot. She just replied, "I don't really want to talk about it."

"Understood," Dan said, and the others nodded sympathetically. All except Ricky, who eyed her still with a curiosity she couldn't seem to shake. Thankfully, Neal came to her rescue.

"As much as I hate to be back, it is really great to see you guys again," he said, seating himself amongst his old friends. Emma followed suit. "Where's Abe?"

The convivial atmosphere sunk instantly. Smiles slid from faces as the boys shot each other dreadful glances. In the silence, Neal assumed the worse, his own face falling.

"Dylan?" he tried, looking around for other missing faces. The gloomy silence persisted. "Wyatt?"

"We lost them," Ricky said, shaking his head solemnly. "A lots happened since you took off."

"How did they…?" Neal started to ask, though the question faded from his lips, ending only in a pointed glance. Ricky seemed to understand it's meaning.

"They died, thankfully," he said. Emma raised her eyebrows at the response. She did not expect these young boys to think about death with gratitude. "No skinnings among our lot. There have been a few since you left, but all newbies you wouldn't know. Wouldn't have lasted long anyways. You know the type."

"But that's all about to be over soon."

"What do you mean?" Neal asked. Emma leaned forward, remembering what the thin-faced boy had said to Hook in the cabin below deck of the Jolly Roger. That exciting things had been happening here in the past few days.

"That's right, you don't know!" Serif exclaimed, his eyes darting excitedly to the rest of the group. "They think they've finally found the boy Pan's been looking for all these years."

Emma's heart dropped through her stomach. She saw the blood drain from Neal's face, but he pulled on his most innocent ignorance as he continued to prod for more information.

"The one from the picture?"

"Mhmm," Dan nodded enthusiastically. "These two adults showed up with him just a few days ago. He looks exactly like the boy they've been looking for. The spitting image."

"Of course they are waiting for Pan to come back to confirm – he's travelling, you know he never likes to stick around too long."

"What's going to happen to him?" Emma asked, trying to keep the squeak out of her voice. It didn't make sense that a stranger who just got here would care, and the group did look at her curiously, but she asked again. She had to know. "What's Pan going to do to the boy if he is the right one?"

"I'm not sure," Ricky said, "but you know what this means?" he turned excitedly to Neal. "It means we are free. It means we get to go back home again. If there's no hunt, then there is no reason for us to be here to stay here. Pan will move on with whatever plans he has and we can get out of here!"

"So, we're just going to leave this boy to Pan's wrath?" Neal swallowed. He pierced his companions with a guilty glare. "After everything, we're just going to abandon one of our own?"

"Look, I'm not saying it's not unfortunate," Ricky said. "But we don't stand a chance against Pan anyways, and you know it. It's just one kid. And then the rest of us get to go home."

Emma could see hesitation sprouting in the faces of the other companions even as they nodded in agreement. Neal surveyed them all solemnly.

"You guys know there is no home to go back to, right?" Neal said, and the boys froze, looking at him.

"What do you mean?" Serif asked.

"I mean it's been hundreds of years. Think about it. We've been here, not aging, but our families have been back in their worlds, where time is very real. They'll all be gone."

The faces of the boys fell as he spoke and they realized the truth in his words. Emma found herself feeling their despair, even though she knew that her family, while still perhaps not the traditional age, was waiting for her when, and if, she were to return. Even still, the sight of the excited and hopeful expressions sliding off their faces was quite devastating.

"How do you know that?" Ricky asked, his face hard to read as he pierced Neal with a hard stare.

"I just…" Neal got caught up for a moment before figuring out how to proceed without giving himself away, "I mean, think about it. Just think it through, think about how time works outside of here. Time won't have stopped for everyone else. Nothing will be like it was when we came here, everything will be different. We won't know anyone anymore, it will just be us on our own again."

The boys blinked. They had clearly never even considered this. It was so sad to see all of their dreams, all of what they had been striving for for hundreds of years be crushed in an instant. Emma wondered if Neal was speaking from real experience, from when he got back to her world after spending a century here to find it completely different and all the people he had known and cared about there gone.

"But this kid, he still has a family. He's brand new, he was just taken from somewhere. We don't have anyone else to go home to, but he does. He's one of us now, and that makes him family. And maybe we can't get back to our real families, but if we can help him to, I don't know, don't we owe it to him? Don't we owe it to each of us who has lost that chance? To Abe and Dylan and Wyatt and everyone else who doesn't get to go home? If we can get just one of us back to our families, isn't that worth it?"

Emma was impressed. She could see an honorable motivation in each of boys sparking as he spoke of the need for them to fight for something bigger than themselves. She looked at Baelfire in a bit of awe.

"I suppose it is," Ricky said finally, and the rest of the boys followed his lead, nodding with resolve. Ricky slapped Neal on the back and said, "so, what's the plan, chief?"


End file.
